You Are What You Eat: September 12 through September 25
1. The "days without eating in a restaurant" counter now stands at 202, and I'm becoming increasingly sure that it will make it a full year without any challenge. The "days without takeout" stands at 33.
My stat block is increasingly pointless, but I've kept this far so I might as well keep rolling with it until the end of 2020.
Restaurant Stats
Just Me and M, or Just Me (non-concert, non-ballgame, non-travel): 11 (+0)
-- Twice in a Week Resolution Breaker: 1 (+0)
With Friends/Family (non-concert, non-ballgame): 7 (+0)
Concert/Ball-game drinks: 5 (+0)
Travel: 15 (+0)
People over for food: 3 (+0)
Longest Streak of no restaurant - 202 and counting.
Longest Streak for no takeout - 98.
2. I made nine new recipes, bringing the total for the year to 94. Six of those were from various issues of Eating Well, one was from my mother, and the other two were ice cream. Wait, ice cream?
- We put a ice cream maker on our wedding registry, and my former co-host Shari and her daughter Helen and their respective significant others got it for us. We made two different recipes in this time segment, and they were both smashing successes. Our first ever batch was strawberry ice cream. It was delicious. Our second batch was peanut butter cup, which included a full cup of peanut butter and another cup of crumbled peanut butter cups. This may have been even more delicious. Even better, after M read about waffles she wanted to have a waffle bar for dinner, so one night we had waffles with home made strawberry ice cream on then, plus M had purchased chocolate syrup and whipped cream, which worked equally well when we had ice cream sans waffles.
Both of these ice cream recipes came with our ice cream maker. There are many interesting flavors in that book yet, but we also have a Jeni's Ice Cream cookbook that M's mother got me as a Christmas gift. I hadn't used it because most of the recipes concluded with "dump it in the ice cream maker". Now that this is not a problem, I expect I'll be breaking that book out soon.
- M really loves tomato-basil soup, so I turned to the September 2020 Eating Well for Tomato-Basil Soup with Herbed Focaccia Croutons. However, I skipped making the croutons and just used store bought ones. The soup itself was comparatively quick and tasty. M approves.
- But why stop at tomato soup? The same issue of Eating Well had a whole section of recipes from a recurring church supper down south, including the Tomato Casserole. It has a enough cheese that it may not be healthy, even more tomatoes, and a Cheese-It cracker crust. We both liked this and will make it again some time.
- Our last recipe from the September 2020 Eating Well was the Braised Chicken with Mushrooms & Leeks. M rated this as a hearty stew good for colder weather. However, her view may have been slanted because I went a little farther and served it on top of mashed potatoes as the recipe recommended but did not have built into it. Having learned that M loves mashed potatoes and that it's easy to make mashed potatoes in an instant pot, or more accurately, it's very easy to steam potatoes in the instant pot, which makes mashing them easy.
By a super weird coincidence my sister texted me that they'd made this for dinner and enjoyed it a scant few minutes before I started cooking, although she didn't make the mashed potatoes so I'm going to say ours was better!
- I tapped my red folder of "recipes I need to get around to" three times. Most successfully, I made the Potsticker & Vegetable Soup from the November/December 2018 Eating Well. This was the first recipe I can recall making to use edamame. M really liked the broth, which is probably because it was loaded with ginger, garlic, cilantro, lemongrass and hot chilis, all of which were sauteed before adding the broth to the pot. This led to a very flavorful broth; the frozen potstickers were comparatively less interesting. I should try using that broth with wonton soup. M was very emphatic that I should make this again.
- The red folder offered up two recipes from the December 2019 Eating Well, the first of which was Crispy Smashed Potatoes with Green Horseradish Sauce. Basically this was potatoes that had been boiled and then roasted covered with a really delicious green sauce. It was good, but given the complexity perhaps not worth making again.
- Also from the December 2019 Eating Well was the Chicken Cacciatore Hoagies. This was pretty good, although in lieu of the hoagie rolls I might serve it over pasta or some other starch in the future.
- Lastly, my mother sent me this recipe for Salmon with Maple Mustard Dill Glaze. We used the bake option. You can never have too many ways to make salmon, and this one is relatively easy, so we'll probably hold on to it. Also, Tulip loves cooked salmon skin.
1 ½ teaspoon Dijon Mustard
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
¼ cup Maple syrup
½ teaspoon finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon dill weed
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 pound or more salmon fillets or side
Whisk together ingredients thru oil.
Can use 3 tablespoons to marinate salmon and then grill and use balance to baste salmon during last few minutes of grilling.
Or:
Use as poaching liquid in fry pan that salmon fits in. Start with salmon skin side up and turn over after about 6 minutes. Baste with sauce as it cooks for next 6 minutes or until salmon flakes easily.
Or:
Pour over salmon in baking dish and bake in 375 degree oven basting now and then until salmon flakes easily.
My stat block is increasingly pointless, but I've kept this far so I might as well keep rolling with it until the end of 2020.
Restaurant Stats
Just Me and M, or Just Me (non-concert, non-ballgame, non-travel): 11 (+0)
-- Twice in a Week Resolution Breaker: 1 (+0)
With Friends/Family (non-concert, non-ballgame): 7 (+0)
Concert/Ball-game drinks: 5 (+0)
Travel: 15 (+0)
People over for food: 3 (+0)
Longest Streak of no restaurant - 202 and counting.
Longest Streak for no takeout - 98.
2. I made nine new recipes, bringing the total for the year to 94. Six of those were from various issues of Eating Well, one was from my mother, and the other two were ice cream. Wait, ice cream?
- We put a ice cream maker on our wedding registry, and my former co-host Shari and her daughter Helen and their respective significant others got it for us. We made two different recipes in this time segment, and they were both smashing successes. Our first ever batch was strawberry ice cream. It was delicious. Our second batch was peanut butter cup, which included a full cup of peanut butter and another cup of crumbled peanut butter cups. This may have been even more delicious. Even better, after M read about waffles she wanted to have a waffle bar for dinner, so one night we had waffles with home made strawberry ice cream on then, plus M had purchased chocolate syrup and whipped cream, which worked equally well when we had ice cream sans waffles.
Both of these ice cream recipes came with our ice cream maker. There are many interesting flavors in that book yet, but we also have a Jeni's Ice Cream cookbook that M's mother got me as a Christmas gift. I hadn't used it because most of the recipes concluded with "dump it in the ice cream maker". Now that this is not a problem, I expect I'll be breaking that book out soon.
- M really loves tomato-basil soup, so I turned to the September 2020 Eating Well for Tomato-Basil Soup with Herbed Focaccia Croutons. However, I skipped making the croutons and just used store bought ones. The soup itself was comparatively quick and tasty. M approves.
- But why stop at tomato soup? The same issue of Eating Well had a whole section of recipes from a recurring church supper down south, including the Tomato Casserole. It has a enough cheese that it may not be healthy, even more tomatoes, and a Cheese-It cracker crust. We both liked this and will make it again some time.
- Our last recipe from the September 2020 Eating Well was the Braised Chicken with Mushrooms & Leeks. M rated this as a hearty stew good for colder weather. However, her view may have been slanted because I went a little farther and served it on top of mashed potatoes as the recipe recommended but did not have built into it. Having learned that M loves mashed potatoes and that it's easy to make mashed potatoes in an instant pot, or more accurately, it's very easy to steam potatoes in the instant pot, which makes mashing them easy.
By a super weird coincidence my sister texted me that they'd made this for dinner and enjoyed it a scant few minutes before I started cooking, although she didn't make the mashed potatoes so I'm going to say ours was better!
- I tapped my red folder of "recipes I need to get around to" three times. Most successfully, I made the Potsticker & Vegetable Soup from the November/December 2018 Eating Well. This was the first recipe I can recall making to use edamame. M really liked the broth, which is probably because it was loaded with ginger, garlic, cilantro, lemongrass and hot chilis, all of which were sauteed before adding the broth to the pot. This led to a very flavorful broth; the frozen potstickers were comparatively less interesting. I should try using that broth with wonton soup. M was very emphatic that I should make this again.
- The red folder offered up two recipes from the December 2019 Eating Well, the first of which was Crispy Smashed Potatoes with Green Horseradish Sauce. Basically this was potatoes that had been boiled and then roasted covered with a really delicious green sauce. It was good, but given the complexity perhaps not worth making again.
- Also from the December 2019 Eating Well was the Chicken Cacciatore Hoagies. This was pretty good, although in lieu of the hoagie rolls I might serve it over pasta or some other starch in the future.
- Lastly, my mother sent me this recipe for Salmon with Maple Mustard Dill Glaze. We used the bake option. You can never have too many ways to make salmon, and this one is relatively easy, so we'll probably hold on to it. Also, Tulip loves cooked salmon skin.
1 ½ teaspoon Dijon Mustard
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
¼ cup Maple syrup
½ teaspoon finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon dill weed
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 pound or more salmon fillets or side
Whisk together ingredients thru oil.
Can use 3 tablespoons to marinate salmon and then grill and use balance to baste salmon during last few minutes of grilling.
Or:
Use as poaching liquid in fry pan that salmon fits in. Start with salmon skin side up and turn over after about 6 minutes. Baste with sauce as it cooks for next 6 minutes or until salmon flakes easily.
Or:
Pour over salmon in baking dish and bake in 375 degree oven basting now and then until salmon flakes easily.